


Hand in Unlovable Hand

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: Gone Girl (2014), Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Manipulation, Miscarriage (maybe), Post-Canon, Rough Sex, Trick or Treat: Treat, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 13:56:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21282824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: He's never been good with truths. Perhaps that's the reason why he and Amy have been drawn to each other.
Relationships: Amy Elliott Dunne/Nick Dunne
Comments: 23
Kudos: 81
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2019





	Hand in Unlovable Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This got a little away from me and grew so dark that I was worried about gifting it, but I figured I'd post it anyway; maybe someone will enjoy it.

Amy loses the baby. 

(Or, perhaps more accurately: Amy says she's lost the baby.)

*

Nick comes home and there's blood on the floor, and he has a horrific moment of déjà vu until he hears the crying from the bathroom. Amy sits on the floor next to the toilet, the skin on her thighs crimson and tears streaming down her face.

Something stirs in him. 

For a moment, he almost believes that it's sympathy, maybe, or at least pity. A distant part of his mind looking at the shaking woman braced against the bloody tiles and remembering the vibrant, smiling girl he fell in love with. Mourning the family he wanted, back when things were different. Before losing his job. Before Missouri. Before Andie. Before Amy punished him by framing him for her fucking murder and then acted like he deserved it.

But that was a long time ago, and sympathy has never been his strongest suit to begin with.

*

She clings to him when he helps her to her feet, and she feels small and fragile in his arms in a way that he knows she's not.

"I'm sorry," she keeps saying, over and over again, when he carefully wipes away the blood with a wet cloth.

"It's not your fault," he tells her. 

It feels like they're acting out a script: the traumatized wife who miscarried and blames herself; the loving husband who assures her that no guilt rests on her. It feels as fake as his whole life has felt in those last few weeks.

Amy doesn't want absolution. He doesn't think Amy even knows how to be sorry. If she did, maybe he could forgive her, but she doesn't and he can't, and so they're stuck faking it. Lie after lie, one brick onto another until they're surrounded by walls, just the two of them in their solid house of lies.

When he carries her to the bedroom and tugs her in, she reaches for his hand and interlaces their fingers.

"Can you stay? Please, Nick. I want you here with me tonight."

That, at least, is the truth. He thinks it's probably the only truth she's told today.

*

"Was there ever a baby?" he asks into the darkness, staring at the shadows moving across the ceiling and unable to sleep.

Amy turns onto her side to face him. She gives him a cold, hard look – the one that makes his blood freeze, makes him remember the crime scene photos from Desi Collings' bedroom the press got hold of and splashed all over the front pages, a vivid reminder of what she's capable of even if no one but a selected few recognised that she wasn't the victim of that story. 

"Stop being crass, Nick," she tells him, all the fragility gone from her voice.

It's not an answer. (It's enough of an answer.)

*

"At least you're free now," Go says.

She fills up his glass and leans on the counter. Whatever she sees on his face makes her wince. "I'm sorry. I know you wanted to be a father, but—" 

_Maybe it's for the best_, she doesn't say, but he hears it anyway.

Nick shakes his head. "Yeah, I know." 

He knows she's right. She's always right, about so many things. She's been right about Amy from the start, and maybe he should have listened to her. 

But he's never been good at listening, least of all to good advice and truths. He's never been good with truths. Perhaps that's the reason why he and Amy have been drawn to each other.

*

A reporter he's vaguely familiar with is leaving the house just as he comes home. She looks at him with the kind of fake, professional sympathy vultures like her are good at, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Nick," she says, like they're old friends. 

It makes him bristle. He doesn't even know her fucking name. 

He puts on what he hopes is an appropriately sad smile. "Thank you. Things have been really tough for me and Amy, and this is just—It's a lot."

She nods. "Of course. I hope you can catch a break soon."

It's hard not to roll his eyes. People like her make a living out of the fact that Amy and him _don't_ catch a break. Just like Amy makes a living out of it. Nothing sells like drama and tragedy, after all.

*

When they're alone, Amy strips off her grieving expression and the black dresses, putting on lipstick and sharp smiles. Her hair's growing longer again, and she looks almost like she used to. Except that the old her used to hide away all the terrible, broken, vicious parts of herself, while the new her wears them like badges of honor.

It brings out the worst in him too. He slams her against the wall and puts his hand around her throat, stepping so close that they're breathing the same air.

She raises her chin and bares her teeth in a mocking grin. "Do you want to hurt me, Nick? Do you fantasize about punishing me? Do what everyone thinks you already did?"

"Shut up. Just shut the fuck up, you fucking bitch," he hisses, suddenly furious, because he can't stand it, can't stand _her_. 

He reaches down and fumbles with the zipper of his pants, shoving her skirt and panties out of the way before he pushes into her without care or preparation, pleased at the way she gasps. 

He fucks her hard, face to face against the wall, with her fingernails scratching down his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist, a string of violent fantasies of what she thinks he wants to do to her spilling from her lips, every single one of them things he already imagined a million times over.

When she comes, she clings to him, her hair fanning over his cheek and her face hidden again his neck. He smoothes the sweaty blonde strands back and thinks how easy it would be to tumble them both down over the stair rails. Just a few steps backwards, that's all it would take. He can almost hear it: wood cracking, her scream, the echo of their bodies hitting the ground.

Amy pulls back and looks at him, smiling like she knows exactly what's going on in his mind.

"I like it when we're honest with each other," she says.

He can't hold back the laughter that tears from his throat like it desperately needs to break free.

*

Another interview, another hungry-eyed wannabe journalist asking intrusive questions and receiving crocodile tears and fake confessions to feed their appetite for grief and pain.

Amy clasps Nick's hand like he gives her strength and he squeezes hers in return, a little too hard. She leans her head against his shoulder, right on the spot where she bit down hard enough to draw blood this morning. He smiles and pretends to smooth down her dress where he knows she's hiding finger-shaped bruises.

They're good at leaving marks where no one else can see them. 

"You know," Amy tells the interviewer. "We've been through so much together, there's nothing that can get between us now. It's Nick and I against the world."

The interviewer coos appreciatively and looks at them like they're a picture book example of love and marriage.

*

There's nothing holding him here.

No child Amy can use to manipulate him with, no blackmail, nothing to make him stay. Perhaps if he left, she'd stage another crime, but he doubts it. 'Abusive asshole husband leaves his mourning wife after she lost their baby' is already the perfect story for the media to eat up and cash in on; no need to risk the surefire wave of sympathy and financial revenue Amy would receive by getting the cops involved again.

His exit plan is simple. Step 1: pack a suitcase. Step 2: take it and walk through the front door. Step 3: move in with Go. Step 4: let Amy keep the house and the lies and what remains of his life. Step 5: start over somewhere new.

He makes it to step 1. 

The suitcase is packed, waiting in the guest room where he doesn't sleep anymore.

"I don't understand what you're waiting for," Go says.

He doesn't understand either.

But then Amy smiles at him with blood on her teeth from where she bit his lip, and she tells him how she planned to kill herself so the police would get him for her murder, and he turns her around and presses her head into the sheets and imagines smothering her as he takes her from behind.

There's nothing holding him here except for the ugly moments of truth between the lies.

He comes with her name on his lips like a curse, and she laughs when she winds her arms around his neck and pulls him into another kiss full of teeth and blood and brutal honesty.

"I love you," she breathes, and he can't tell anymore where the truth ends and the lies begin.

End.


End file.
